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Objects of desire: maple syrup

What to bring back from your travels

Chris Haslam

July 17 2016, 12:01am, The Sunday Times

If there’s one taste that defines the American northeast, it’s maple syrup, a gift from the trees that doesn’t merely sweeten pancakes. Research is beginning to show that it may be a superfood, with potential anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties. Walk into any American supermarket and you’ll see rows of syrups with folksy labels, but don’t be fooled. Most are made from coloured corn syrup with maple flavouring, and are to the real thing what Dairylea is to camembert.

To find the true object of desire, you need to go to Vermont, where 70-odd farms produce about 40% of all the maple syrup consumed in the US. Up here, in the same forests that attract hordes of leaf-peepers each autumn, sugar-makers head out in March to…